With the fast development in various technological fields, people pay more attention to healthy outdoor activities, including traveling and making a trip. When traveling or making a trip by driving, people would usually position one or more desired portable electronic devices in the car, such as a still camera, a video camera, a global positioning system (GPS) navigator, a personal digital assistant (PDA), etc., so that the driver may timely and accurately take pictures or quickly and correctly find and reach the destination with the help of these portable electronic devices. Moreover, with the video camera or the still camera mounted in the car, pictures may be timely taken during driving and used as an evidencing record to support the driver in the event of an accident. With the support of such evidencing record, the party that should be responsible for the accident may be immediately and clearly determined without the necessity of stopping the cars on the road and waiting for the traffic police. A lot of traffic jams and disputes between the drivers involved in less serious accidents may therefore be avoided.
On the other hand, with the upgraded network wideband specifications and techniques as well as the new trends of multimedia networks, more and more people love to post the pictures and clips they shot in their blogs. Therefore, even an amateur photography lover may take pictures using a still camera or a video camera on a car to record the beautiful scenery during travel or trip, and share the pictures or films with others over the Internet.
To use a portable electronic device in a car, the user may hold the device with two hands or position the device on a planar surface by providing a stand behind the device. However, the stand can only support the device without the function of fixedly holding the device in place. The expensive portable electronic device rested on the stand is subject to unexpected movement and falling, and accordingly undesirable damage. Due to the limited space available in a car, the stand for the portable electronic device is usually positioned atop the dashboard and can not be freely adjusted to different angular positions for the driver and other passengers to clearly view the information displayed on the device from the most comfortable angle.
A suction-type mounting bracket device for use with a portable electronic device has been developed, so that the portable electronic device used in a car may be attached to the windshield, for example, via the suction-type mounting bracket device. The conventional suction-type mounting bracket device has only one suction cup with a rubber flange portion for attaching to the windshield. In the event the suction cup is loosened from the windshield, the whole portable electronic device will fall and become damaged. Moreover, with the conventional suction-type mounting bracket device, the portable electronic device connected thereto is usually in an inverted position, preventing the user to handle or operate it in a normal position. And, the user has to use complicated and troublesome computer programs to reverse the images taken by the inverted portable electronic device when playing back the images for viewing at a later time.
It is therefore tried by the inventor to develop an improved suction-type mounting bracket device for use with a portable electronic device to overcome the above-mentioned drawbacks.